An idea for filling unit gaps

[acluewithout]

As everyone knows, there are various gaps in the upgrade paths for all units. For example, melee units don’t have an upgrade for Medieval and Industrial Eras. This seems to be by design, but can sometimes be a problem. I’ve got a suggestion for fixing this but which still mostly keeps the current design.

So. Some Civs have unique tile improvements, but many don’t. But Civ adds some flexibility here by letting all Civs gain unique improvements from Suzerain from some City States. So, eg, if you’re playing England, and you want a unique tile improvement, you can become suzerain of Grandana and can then build Alcazars.

Similarly, some Civs have unique units which fill in unit era gaps. So, eg, although there is no general Medieval Melee Unit, Norway, Georgia and Japan all have unique melee units which fill in this gap.

What if, just like tile improvements, there was a way other Civs could sometimes access new unique units that fill in these era unit gaps. So, eg, if you’re playing England, you could do “something” which would then give you access to Longswordsmen. Not everyone would have access to this unit - just you . This would mean the game could keep the current unit gap design, but players who really wanted to could fill in these gaps.

So, what would be this “something” you do to get these units? I’m not sure, really. It could maybe be a Suzerain bonus, but then that would mean the Suzerain bonus would only be useful for one era. I think the best candidates would be access via particular Great General’s or Great Admiral’s retirement abilities (or even other great people) and or unlocked via goody huts and or maybe a % random chance from completing a City State Quest.

What do people think?

 

[Sostratus]

The age system leaves an opening through dedications.
For example, we could rework Heartbeat of Steam to symbolize your Civilization's embracing the dawning industrial age in all aspects, unlocking mighty dreadnoughts- ranged precursors to battleships. (~ 65ranged/55melee (requires coal?), 2 range)

Thinking about this, though, it might make more sense to actually give options for the dedications. For example: HBoS always gives either era score or the wonder production bonus (depending on type of age,) but then a player could choose if they want:
Campus Adjacency provides production
Dreadnought Unit
+50% towards IZ district & buildings
or what have you. Perhaps we strip down some of the existing GA bonuses and instead allow those in the Golden age to pick 2 of the options.

Existing units would obviously stick around, but otherwise have a natural sunset with the world era. The nice thing here is that you get a very tangible effect during that age. I would prefer if dedications gave more permanent bonuses in general, but that's not how they are designed at the moment.

Another opportunity to inject units into the game is to do it through governments & policy cards. Normally cards are just too swappable to really make this balanced, but what we could do is either add in leaf civics to give extra unit cards or we could make them as additional cards from unlocking the legacy for your government. For example, Upon completing a government plaza building, you get a military card (in addition to the legacy card) that lets you build a unit based on government. (In some cases these may be effectively the same unit but with flavors like redcoat vs garde imperiale.) So for example, the tier 2 unlock might be "longswordsmen" with the card providing the ability to build the unit and giving that unit a bonus e.g. +5 strength against melee units. This way, there is an incentive to keep the card slotted after you build/upgrade- for the bonus! We don't want to create more exploits like the unit upgrade cost card!
Yes, I get that t2 gov'ts often come too late for longswords to be useful but you get the idea. (Why don't they all unlock at the same point like political philosophy and the ideologies?!)

 

[acluewithout]

I like these ideas.

I’d suggested before maybe having 5 dedications to choose between each Era, with the fifth being determined by your government type. If it worked like that, then unique units could be via this government dedication; eg the dedication you get via Monarchy. That way potentially more than one player could potentially access these units.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

There are a lot of units in history and in the game that could legitimately be tied to Civics or Policy cards rather than strictly to Technologies.
For some instances straight out of memory:

1. Spears are prehistoric weapons, either thrust or thrown. The game Spearman, though, represents the mass of men fighting as a coherent unit with large shields and spears and (usually) some kind of body armor. This required a Civic/Social Policy development of Civic Duty or Civic Responsibility, in which the mass of farmers/peasants felt that they Should be in the ranks defending the State. That same impulse also led directly to the Greek Hoplite Phalanx and the Roman Legion.
2. Bronze was expensive stuff, because the alloy materials to make it are not easily found in quantity in the same place. Consequently, the development of Bronze Working resulted also in the development of 'Heroic Warfare', in which relatively few men armed with most of the Bronze available fought each other and led armies to victory - Homer's works describe this type of warfare pretty accurately, and it was an enormous change from the 'mass armies' of the earlier City States of the Middle East. I suggest that the Heavy Chariot as a platform for such Heroes could well be a unit from a Social Policy/Civic/Dedication instead of a Technology alone.
3. Heavily-armed men on horseback have been charging with some kind of thrusting weapon since the 4th century BC, at least. What made the Medieval Knight different was not technology, it was the combination of technology (better metallurgy in armor and weapons, cantled saddle, bigger horses) and the Social Policy/Civic of 'Feudal Duty' or 'Fiefdom', in which in return for land to support himself the knight essentially trained himself and provided his own panoply of weapons, horse and armor. Made an army of knights, at least theoretically, much cheaper than any other kind ('theoretically' because it didn't quite work out that well, and the classic Feudal Knight was pretty quickly replaced by Mercenaries Paid For by the knights to take their place while the Knights stayed home to milk their estates for everything they could - but in Game Terms, it comes to the same thing: a strong combat unit that costs very little if any maintenance or 'building' expense to the State/Player)
4. 'Nationalism' in all its forms, is a product of the Enlightenment - late 18th century, and by no coincidence was followed immediately by mass conscript armies of the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Era: in game terms, the mass-army Riflemen melee unit could well be a result of a Civic or Social Policy or even a new Dedication rather than 'mere' Technology.

All this ties into the fact that there should be much, much more 'integration' and cross-over influence among the Technologies, Civic, Social Policies, Units, Eurekas and Bonuses. The game made a start on this, but it needs to be expanded, and include the Dedications. No system in the game works entirely by itself, and this should be a Mantra to any Modder or game designer trying to change any game-system.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The age system leaves an opening through dedications.
For example, we could rework Heartbeat of Steam to symbolize your Civilization's embracing the dawning industrial age in all aspects, unlocking mighty dreadnoughts- ranged precursors to battleships. (~ 65ranged/55melee (requires coal?), 2 range)

Thinking about this, though, it might make more sense to actually give options for the dedications. For example: HBoS always gives either era score or the wonder production bonus (depending on type of age,) but then a player could choose if they want:
Campus Adjacency provides production
Dreadnought Unit
+50% towards IZ district & buildings
or what have you. Perhaps we strip down some of the existing GA bonuses and instead allow those in the Golden age to pick 2 of the options.

Existing units would obviously stick around, but otherwise have a natural sunset with the world era. The nice thing here is that you get a very tangible effect during that age. I would prefer if dedications gave more permanent bonuses in general, but that's not how they are designed at the moment.

Another opportunity to inject units into the game is to do it through governments & policy cards. Normally cards are just too swappable to really make this balanced, but what we could do is either add in leaf civics to give extra unit cards or we could make them as additional cards from unlocking the legacy for your government. For example, Upon completing a government plaza building, you get a military card (in addition to the legacy card) that lets you build a unit based on government. (In some cases these may be effectively the same unit but with flavors like redcoat vs garde imperiale.) So for example, the tier 2 unlock might be "longswordsmen" with the card providing the ability to build the unit and giving that unit a bonus e.g. +5 strength against melee units. This way, there is an incentive to keep the card slotted after you build/upgrade- for the bonus! We don't want to create more exploits like the unit upgrade cost card!
Yes, I get that t2 gov'ts often come too late for longswords to be useful but you get the idea. (Why don't they all unlock at the same point like political philosophy and the ideologies?!)

Take a look at JFD's "Rule With Faith" Mod, which gives an idea what can be done with the Policy system. As I remember, he adds specific sets of Cultural and Religious Policies along with the current Military, Diplomatic, Wildcard and Production cards. In such an 'expanded' system, there is more than enough room for Military Social Policies specific to individual Units or that are available through Dedications or even Technologies rather than purely through Civics.

 

[acluewithout]

I’ve wondered a few times if the Spearmen line would work better unlocking through the Civics tree. I think that would be too hard to implement now, but perhaps an interesting thought.

Sorry, but I don’t like the idea of units unlocking through policy cards. Policy cards don’t seem to have that sort of function. The game is also designed to have unit gaps - if it’s too easy to get these ‘gap filler’ units it would cut across that design.